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Rights of way on Dartmoor

Having just taken delivery of my new Garmin Etrex30 handheld GPS mapping system I am looking forward to some fun time exploring Dartmoor on horseback. I will be out with the South Devon Foxhounds tomorrow near Manaton so (assuming I can work out how to use it by then which is rather an assumption!) I will be able to map our routes and upload them to my PC when I get home. So when I regale my other half with tales of my daring do he will be forced to look at it as well as listen to me – worse than holiday snaps!

I will have the Explorer OS map (1:25,000) loaded onto my Etrex and plan to waymark all the bogs!! Happily on horseback we can ride freely over the access land along with the hikers – unlike cyclists who must stick to the bridleways and byways. Not all mountain bikers know this apparently. There are however plenty of other Dartmoor byelaws which even walkers and horse riders must observe. For example no-one is allowed to feed the Dartmoor ponies – at all – and there are restrictions on training and exercising racehorses in some areas of the moor.